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Latest Columbia News
Russia is suspending its space tourist program, for fairly obvious reasons. An NYT story notes that the obsolete but reliable computers driving the shuttle are to be examined as part of the inquiry. But most interestingly, a story in Aviation Week claims that a tracking camera trained on the shuttle detected damage to the wing prior to the breakup.
As with the Challenger disaster, there are many smart people trying to determine the cause of the accident. In addition to the wreckage, there are memos, notes, films, and other media to review. Investigations take time, and regardless of the desire to find an immediate smoking gun,I anticipate NASA will release an official report no sooner than may. Right now we have several media "experts" offering their opinions.
I am me...I think
"We continue to recover crew remains and we are handling that process with the utmost care, the utmost respect and dignity," said Ronald Dittemore, shuttle program manager.
They died advancing science so we could all live better lives. Let's keep this in mind...
I wonder if NASA will start making in orbit inspections of shuttles part of the flight plan. While things like this are obviously rare they are real and deadly.
I wonder how long it would take an astronaut to correctly inspect a shuttle in orbit.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
It's not really obvious why they're doing it. The article implies, but doesn't state, that it's because they now need to put cargo where the third, "passenger" seat would go on a Soyuz capsule.
Some people have suggested they're doing it because "space is now unsafe", which makes absolutely no sense.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
In this case, a stable, well-known and quite familiar technology is "the best kit we can." If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Upgrading for the sake of getting "newer" components is more likely to cause safety hazards than leaving older, perfectly good systems in place.
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they could very well decide that a 20+ year old OS is too archain to be used on the shuttle.
And that would be a damn shame if they decide to switch so another OS Just Because The Current One Is Old. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" keeps echoing in my head.
Trolling is a art,
It seems unlikely that computers were to blame for this, but the kit in the shuttle is pretty old - if we're going to ask people to risk their lives like this we must give them the best kit we can.
that would be suicide... The older computers running in the shuttles are rock solid, space proven, and reliable. which are very different from anything that intel or AMD makes. the older and slower computers are doing the job fine without baing overloaded or needing to read sensors any faster. Remember, this is flight control computers... I'd rather have a known 99.999999999% uptime processor that was designed in the 80's running my spacecraft or aircraft than any of this unstable junk we use today.
outdated in the articles terms means it's nothing but a comment by an uneducated person trying to get their 15 seconds of fame.
The Software would have a larger potential for blame... I.E. the programmer did not make klaxons go off when sensors give bad readings, or there was any instance of throwing out data.
Until I see a report that states that the current computers on board are running at > 50% capacity and are getting near the overtaxed point then I'll believe it. until then it's fake news.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The people that write the code for the Shuttle do great work, and the organization supports them. The result is software that's remarkably error-free. Like you, I admire them.
I hate it when clueless journalists say "the computers are old" So what? It's the software that's important and the software is top notch. They seem to imply that a pentium IV would have magically saved Columbia. That just isn't true. It's like saying improved metal detectors would have prevented 9/11.
Unless there is some added function that they could only implement only on newer hardware, I don't see why the shuttles need new computers. Naturally, these jouranlists will never ask "what additional functionality does the shuttle need that the current computers don't provide?" they aren't trying to get at the truth of an issue. they're trying to get people to watch - and the best way to do that is by stirring controversy. All it takes to do that is to say "Look! the comptuers are so old!"
It's interesting to read Richard's story of the investigation of the first shuttle disaster, and his realization that the process was political, not scientific.
He had a great deal of trouble, as an official investigator, just being *allowed* to investigate, and of course to release his findings he had to engage in what amounted to guerilla tactics.
The end fate of the Morton-Thiokol engineers who "blew the whistle" must stand as some sort of object lesson in this case as well.
One would hope that steps are being taken to prenvent another go 'round of this shabby and shameful incident in American space history.
KFG
Soyuz is characterized in the popular media as an aging, broken-down spacecraft, but the fact is that it is one of the most reliable and efficient manned spacecraft that has ever been produced. The Soyuz has a launch escape system which has been used once, in 1983, to blast the crew away from their exploding rocket (in the words of one site, "The crew landed close to the launch site, badly bruised after surviving nearly 20g acceleration, but they were still alive.") This is unlike the shuttle, in which escape is impossible for the first two minutes of flight, while the solid boosters (which can't be turned off) are firing. Soyuz has not had a fatal accident since 1971, and has had no major safety issue since 1988. Personally, given the choice between flying on the Shuttle and flying on Soyuz, I would pick the latter.
Spaceflight tends to reward simple and time-tested designs over new and complex. I have read at least one account suggesting that NASA resurrect the Gemini spacecraft for crew transfer to and from the ISS, since it was one of the most reliable spacecraft the US has ever flown.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
But then, whether you call it cynicism or realism, we accept a level of failure in all transport systems which is capable of killing people. We allow people to ride bicycles in motorised traffic. We allow manufacturers to build cars that are capable of traveling fast enough that a brake or steering failure can kill not only the occupants but anyone who gets in the way. We allow the construction of ships that break up in heavy seas, of railways where trains can pass red lights and crash. There is no public contract about this: we never actually get a chance to vote on the level of risk we want in our transport systems. What we do is react to disasters, and politicians have to decide based on that reaction whether to take some kind of action.
Sometimes they do, and as a result we have anti-lock brakes, double-hulled ships, crash barriers on freeways and autoroutes, airbags, automatic train protection systems, and a host of other technologies.
The Shuttle crews are unusual, superior human beings. But they should not need to be heroes, any more than someone who gets on a plane in LA to fly to a meeting in Tokyo is a hero.
Because if the exploration of space is ever to become commonplace, we have to get rid of the idea that this is a dangerous enterprise for heroes. We need to follow the same rules that apply to everything else. We need to ask nasty questions like "Why can't tiles be replaced in orbit, since we have had 18 years to think about things like this?" .
A WW1 biplane could keep flying after it had been shot full of holes, yet the Shuttle seems to have a number of extremely fragile technologies failure of any one of which could destroy it on re-entry. If that's so, why haven't we developed a better technology? Is it the mindset that needs to change as much as the design?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
They did plan for it.
From Nasa's Human Space Flight pages:
The nominal maximum crew size is seven. The middeck can be reconfigured by adding three rescue seats in place of the modular stowage and sleeping provisions. The seating capacity will then accommodate the rescue flight crew of three and a maximum rescued crew of seven.
Make sure one other shuttle is always ready to go within a week like Atlantis was
Atlantis wasn't ready to go. It could be pressed into service, but only by eliminating all pre-launch testing. You know, the testing that routinely finds problems in the months prior to launch that have to be fixed and occasionally cause launch delays?
You want a shuttle ready to go everytime? Ok. You just doubled the cost for every launch. Because keeping a shuttle ready is a huge expense. The environment, even inside a building, is not friendly to the components and continual inspection is necessary for some areas... like the tiles.
It seems like a simple thing to rig up some camera or whatever to look around the corners.
It's not a simple thing. They've been trying to design one for ISS and it's problematic. And that's a vehicle that's not designed for reentry.
As long as you have water, and you can recirculate that pretty low tech, if they don't do that already.
Oddly enough, Columbia would have been in good shape here... They were actually testing systems to recycle water from waste. See here.
I expect something like this to be in place before the shuttles are taken in use again
I don't. Doing so at this stage would kill manned space flight. It's akin to eliminating seafaring exploring from Europe in the 1400s - 1600s because too many people died in the process, and so we won't do any more exploration until the infrastructure is in place to keep them safe. Except that until the exploration has been done it's impossible to put the infrastructure in place.
I'm not saying that a rescue couldn't have occurred - in fact I posited ways it could have been done (based off statements from NASA no less), but also stated the issues that would have been encountered. Nor am I saying that a rescue shouldn't be attempted in a future case.
But, realistically, we don't have the infrastructure yet. If we want to be able to prevent this kind of disaster in the future, then we have to do more missions, build more flight systems (hopefully more cost effective to run than the shuttle fleet), and put more permanent installations into space. But all of this is decades down the road... and trying to fix it the other way around is a nearly certain way to kill manned spaceflight all together.